Click Here to learn more about these June & July award announcements, the benefits of being an award winner, a few photos and how you could be a future award winner!

Additional Hearst Castle median beautification updates:

End caps: We have plans to add additional end cap installations which will look similar to the new plantings of the ends of the Twelve Oaks median with the one at the east side of Tara potentially being the next to be installed.

Once the temperatures moderate and the time for planting is favorable, we would expect to tackle that so that there would be another area of improvement and some visual repetition as you drive along Hearst Castle. Obviously we hope for success in our membership goals so that we can make additional improvements more quickly.

Trees: We are arranging to have the City of Plano professional arborist examine our Bradford Pears and Red Oak trees and give us a recommendation, as we don’t want to make any of these important decisions without an expert evaluation.

FYI, some interesting background – In resolving the electrical issues at the Hearst Castle / Coit entrance area, the entire north side of the first median was trenched about 10” wide and 18” deep. A number of the roots for each tree (two Bradford Pears and one Red Oak) were severed. The Bradford Pears have pretty much reached the end of their life span and the one closest to Coit has significant storm damage.

We expect to remove the Bradford Pears. If healthy enough, we plan to keep the Red Oak. If at all possible, we will get the City of Plano to remove the old Bradford Pear trees, so as not to use our HOA budget. Timing of this work is expected to coincide with being ready to install replacement landscaping.

Electricity and Sprinklers: The three new sprinkler controllers in the Hearst castle median have the electricity problems fixed and are now working!

FYI, some interesting background – The old system was powered by 20+ year old solar cells and stopped working about two years ago. We replaced them with Rainbird controllers but had to work with Oncor for many months to get them power. During the gap, we had to water the median by turning the solenoids on and off by hand. This was not fun and took over two hours every cycle.

The controllers now automatically water the medians Monday and Thursday mornings. There are about 180 sprinkler heads in the Hearst Castle system and are tested every week to look for broken heads.

If you see any geysers, please contact our HOA Beautification Director John Caldwell at 972.948.4883.

Aside from the Hearst Castle median, our community has two additional controllers for Coit Road. The north Coit controller is working well, while the south Coit controller just got power, as the City of Plano had cut the cable when they were doing road work.

In resolving the electrical issues at the Hearst Castle / Coit entrance area, the entire north side of the first median was trenched about 10” wide and 18” deep. A number of the roots for each tree (two Bradford Pears and one Red Oak) were severed. The Bradford Pears have pretty much reached the end of their life span and the one closest to Coit has significant storm damage.

Timely Local Gardening Tips:

Please read the new July, August & September landscaping hints from Calloways in this newsletter.